Heads or Tails
by the ramblin rose
Summary: Caryl AU, oneshot. Some Mandrea. "Just as one wrong decision could lead to another wrong decision, so could a right decision." Rated for language.


**AN: This is just a little oneshot for fun. I wrote it from a prompt found on Tumblr about flipping a coin to make decisions for a week.**

 **I own nothing from the Walking Dead.**

 **I hope you enjoy! Let me know what you think!**

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"I don't make decisions because that shit don't matter no way," Daryl declared, tired of the ribbing that he was currently getting from Merle over the fact that his "go to" response to most any question was a shrug or a simple "doesn't matter".

"Everything in life matters, lil' brother," Merle insisted. "Ever' damn thing you do's got a good chance at shapin' everything else that happens to you for the rest of your sorry ass life. If you didn't go to work today, ya don't get paid. Don't get paid, don't make the rent. Don't make the rent, lose the trailer. Lose the trailer, your ass is sleepin' in the shop if you lucky an' Mac lets you stay. And that shit just goes on."

Daryl shrugged his shoulders again.

"Sleepin' in the shop ain't a too damn big a step down from the bed I'm sleepin' on these days," Daryl said with a laugh. "Don't gotta get up so damn early to get my ass to work."

"I'm sayin' everything's important," Merle said. "You ought notta go around lettin' everything just happen and waitin' to see how the cards fall."

"Fall one way or fall the other," Daryl said, "they still gonna fall. My ass is still losin', too, probably."

Merle laughed to himself and waved his fingers at the waitress. She noticed him and quickly brought them another pitcher. Tonight was a night that was so unlike most nights that Daryl might have believed the whole evening was something straight out of a dream. Merle was in a decent mood and, honestly, Daryl was in one of the best moods that he could recall being in for the last longest.

It wasn't too often that the two of them were both in high spirits together.

If that didn't make the evening odd enough, Merle was actually forking up the cash to pay for their night of drinking, so Daryl was taking advantage of that fact.

"So you sayin' to me—an' you jump on in here an' correct my ass if I'm wrong—that any decision you gotta make don't really matter to you. Pick it one way or pick it the other, it's all the same to you?" Merle asked.

Daryl laughed to himself at his brother's expression. He could practically see the gears turning in Merle's mind. If he were thinking any harder about how such a statement could bite Daryl in the ass, there would be smoke billowing out of his ears just as surely as if he were a cartoon character.

"Fuck," Daryl said. "I can see you tryin' to figure out how to fuck me over. Go ahead—but that's what the hell I'm sayin'. End of the day? It don't matter. Half the damn shit I decide don't get listened to no way. Not by you an' not by any-damn-body else. It don't matter then. Shit's gonna happen how the hell it's gonna happen."

Merle chuckled to himself and picked up the cool beer that he'd just finished pouring himself from the glass pitcher. He reached around in his shirt pocket and came out with his cigarettes and lighter. In a move of generosity that went with the strange nature surrounding the whole evening, he put them on the bar between himself and Daryl as though he actually intended to share his cigarettes. Then he dug his fingers back in his shirt pocket and came out with a nickel that he put down next to the cigarette pack.

"Then I'ma make a wager with ya, lil' brotha," Merle drawled out. He tapped the nickel with his fingertip. "I'ma wager you can't go one week of your life lettin' that there piece of cold metal make every decision for you that'cha gotta make—outside of work, that is, 'cause I don't want'cha sorry ass gettin' canned."

Daryl laughed to himself and picked up the nickel. He cocked an eyebrow at his brother.

"And what'cha gonna give me if I do?" Daryl asked.

Merle nodded his head in Daryl's direction and smirked.

"Well if you do it," Merle said, "then that there shiny ass nickel is all yours."

Daryl slapped the nickel down on the bar.

"Asshole," he said with a laugh, exchanging the coin for one of the cigarettes that he lit. He slid the ashtray over so that Merle could reach it when he inevitably wanted a smoke a few minutes after seeing Daryl puffing away gave him a craving.

Merle considered what he might offer in exchange for Daryl's going through with the half-baked bet.

"You do it," Merle said, "and I'ma pay the whole damn rent next month. Every penny you'da put in the rent can go right into your savings for that bike you savin' up for."

Daryl sucked his teeth.

"The whole rent?" Daryl asked.

Merle nodded his head.

"Whole damn thing," Merle said.

"And all I gotta do is let this nickel decide everything?" Daryl asked.

Merle hummed at him.

"But there's a catch," Merle said.

"Always damn is," Daryl said, laughing to himself and refilling his own beer glass from the liquid in the pitcher.

"You gotta make your decisions with me," Merle said. "Break everything down to the two damn choices. Or you go one way or you go the other. Tell me which damn thing is which—heads or tails, lil' brotha."

"An' you gonna flip the coin for me?" Daryl asked. Merle hummed and nodded his head, his smile growing wider. Daryl sucked his teeth. "How the hell I'm gonna know you ain't cheating? Telling me that it's something that it ain't?"

Merle shrugged his shoulders.

"Don't reckon it really matters, do it, Daryl?" Merle asked. "If it don't make no difference what'cha decide, it don't make no difference if it's heads or its tails. By your own mouth you're sayin' there ain't no way I can really cheat your ass—'cause you ain't gonna give a damn no way."

Daryl thought about it a moment longer. He was a decent amount of money away from getting the bike that he wanted, but not paying the rent for a month would certainly help.

Two months would help even more—and Merle didn't have a single damn thing to spend his money on except bills, booze, and women.

"You pay the rent for two months," Daryl said. "And I let'cha flip the damn coin about every decision I gotta make outside of work."

Merle grinned at him and helped himself to a cigarette from the pack. He lit it and then offered his hand to Daryl to shake.

"You got a deal, brother," Merle said. "Startin' bright an' early tomorrow morning, me an' this here nickel's gonna show you that every damn thing you decide—it's got a good damn chance of changin' your life."

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Carol sat across the table from Daryl and took another drink from the soda that she'd been paying a good deal of nervous attention to for the whole evening. She'd drank so much of it that she'd excused herself to go to the restroom twice and she was fearing that it wouldn't be long before she had to go again. The waitress was earning her tip just by refilling their drinks at regular intervals.

But Carol was nervous and sucking on the straw gave her something to do that somewhat relieved her nerves. Daryl was nervous too. Otherwise he wouldn't have gotten up each time she'd gone to the restroom to smoke a cigarette and he wouldn't have shredded an entire napkin and twisted it into an elaborate paper tapestry on the edge of the table.

It wasn't that the date was going badly, really. It was going quite well as far as first dates—and practically first meetings—could go. It was that neither of them was accustomed to dating.

Daryl was a self-proclaimed "permanently single" bodyman who was married to his job and Carol had been divorced for two years without even once going out on a date during that time. She was a mother and, since her divorce, she'd let that role be the only defining aspect of her personality.

Still, she'd known Daryl from around town for most of those two years—seeing him here and there and once sharing a conversation with him when he'd fixed her car after someone backed into her in the grocery store parking lot—and she'd always thought he was handsome in a rugged sort of way. She thought he was sweet, too, even if such an adjective didn't go well with his appearance.

Her best friend "dated" his brother, even if "dating" was stretching the truth of what happened between the two of them a little, and Andrea had been the one to convince Carol to take a chance. There was no time like the present and Daryl, who was afraid to approach any woman according to his brother, would be more than willing to take a chance if it wasn't him that had to buck up and do the asking. He was, according to Andrea, simply too shy for such a thing.

So Carol had done something entirely unlike anything she'd ever done before and, with Andrea's urging, she'd made the call. She'd asked if Daryl was interested in going out to dinner—a simple date to get to know one another and, maybe, to see if anything more came from it—and he'd only hesitated a moment before a confident "yes" had come back over the line.

And the date was going well, despite the fact that both of them were nervous enough that people two tables away from them could probably smell it.

"Your daughter's—ten?" Daryl asked.

"Eleven," Carol said. "Well, she's ten right now...but eleven in a week and a half. So—eleven? Closer to eleven than ten."

Daryl nodded his head.

"Sophia," he said. Carol smiled and nodded her head. "Cute kid," Daryl said. "Seen her around a lot. Sometimes with Andrea."

"She loves Andrea," Carol said with a laugh. "I guess—Andrea's like the cool aunt. She doesn't have the responsibility to have to say 'no' quite as much as I do." Daryl laughed at that and nodded his head like he knew what Carol was talking about. Carol didn't know, though, how experienced he was with children and their way of seeing the world. "You like kids?"

Daryl considered it. He shrugged his shoulders and then he cleared his throat like he was correcting himself.

"I mean—I like 'em just fine," Daryl said. "Long as, you know, they ain't bratty kids that just run around screamin' and wreckin' shit."

Carol laughed nervously.

"I don't think Sophia's a brat," Carol said. "But—I guess parents see their children how they want. Or maybe just mother's do. My ex-husband thought she was a brat."

Daryl visibly swallowed.

"He see her much?" Daryl asked.

Carol shook her head.

"It wasn't a good marriage," Carol said, carefully editing the information that she gave about her failed marriage. She wished she hadn't brought it up. She wished she hadn't brought Ed up at all. It wasn't proper for a first date to talk about her ex and she knew that. Still, she'd been divorced from Ed for two years. She hadn't seen him in all that time, yet he remained ever-present in her mind and, therefore, in her life. "It just—it wasn't a good marriage. He wasn't good for me and he wasn't good for Sophia. The judge—he knew that. So Ed doesn't even have partial custody. No rights." She shrugged her shoulders. "I don't think he cares. He never did."

Daryl hummed and returned, for just a second, to his napkin tapestry. Carol took another drink from her glass and ignored the fact that her bladder was screaming at her. She didn't hold his hum against him. He didn't know what to say and she shouldn't have brought it up.

The worst part of it was that she really liked Daryl—and she hadn't felt that way about anyone since she'd gotten divorced from Ed. She hadn't felt that way about Ed for most of her marriage. And she feared, honestly, that she was ruining the first date somehow. She feared that she was ruining her chances of getting to know Daryl better. And that was the last thing she wanted to do—but she didn't know how to stop sabotaging herself.

"You—I mean—it's just the one?" Daryl asked. "You just got the one? Kid?"

Carol almost smiled to herself at his stammering attempts to ask the question. He was trying to keep conversation going. He wanted her to keep talking. Her chest tightened a little. Maybe she hadn't ruined it. Maybe he just wanted her to keep talking—about anything and everything—because he wasn't great at conversation either.

Or, maybe, there was no such thing as a great conversation. Maybe there was just conversation. And they were having one in their own way.

Carol nodded more enthusiastically than such a question really merited.

"Just Sophia," Carol said. "Ed—I—there just weren't any more children."

Daryl nodded.

"Would you—I mean you if you were in that kinda situation...not with him but—would you want more?" Daryl asked. His face turned red. He wiped at his forehead and Carol could see that he was actually sweating a little. He might, very soon, excuse himself to smoke again and Carol wouldn't mind. It would allow her to take care of her need to go to the bathroom without having to be the one to dismiss herself again.

He was every bit as nervous as she was, but he was persevering. And it made Carol feel better because, if she wasn't getting ahead of herself, it meant that he was interested in her. Otherwise? He would have called time of death on this date a long time ago.

His interest gave Carol a sort of confidence that she hadn't felt in a long time. She felt her muscles start to relax.

"Yeah," she said with a smile. "I think—if I were in the right place? With the right person? I think—I'd like another child. I guess—I haven't really thought about it much. I've just been focused on Sophia. I think—when you reach a certain age and there's—there's no real sign that there's—well, that there's anything like a relationship, you know? Like that in your life? I think—you just stop thinking about things because it seems like it's...well, it's just..."

"Never gonna happen?" Daryl offered, a little more confidence behind his own words. "Just—not somethin' in the whole realm of possibility..." he added, his voice lowering even as he spoke.

Carol sucked in a breath and nodded her head.

"Right," she agreed. "It just seems like it's something that's never going to happen. It's never—in the realm of possibility."

Daryl shrugged his shoulders and offered his hands palm up.

"It could—uh—I mean, it could happen, though," Daryl said. "Anything's possible, really. Just—depends on what you decide to do. Anything could change at any time. What was there one minute could be gone or—you know—could be there when it wasn't there before. Depends on where you decide to go with it. But—anything's possible."

Carol smiled to herself.

"Yeah," she agreed. "I guess anything's possible."

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Merle had spent most of his night trying to decide if he was going to rib his little brother about the late hour he brought his sorry ass dragging in—if he ever actually made it home, because Merle had fallen asleep before he'd heard Daryl come stumbling in—or if he was going to let it slide this one time because it was the first time that Merle could remember his brother actually having been out so many hours in the company of the fairer sex.

Daryl was a good man, and by far the sweetest of the Dixon men that had ever been in existence, but something about that sweetness was kryptonite to the type of relationship that Merle knew his brother craved. His brother had always wanted the stable kind of life—the picket fence, dog, and two and a half children, however the hell that was supposed to work, with a wife that doted on him and adored him. The problem was that Daryl's desire for that made it impossible for him to actually get _started_ with anyone. And if he did speak to a woman, he was apt to run her ass off in five minutes flat because he jumped, too quickly, from asking her name to fishing for details about what she might want later in life—much later than where she likely was at the moment.

Of course, it was possible that part of Daryl's problem was that the women he tended to meet at the bar weren't the kind of women who had come there looking for anything that even smelled like a picket fence kind of life.

Carol was a different kind of woman, though, and Andrea had assured him of that. That's why he hadn't hesitated to make sure that Daryl accepted the invitation that Andrea had pushed the woman into making.

And it either went really well or it went really badly because Daryl had been gone, the night before, long enough that he could've hidden a body three or four times over.

When Merle came into the kitchen from his bedroom, he found his little brother sitting at the table with a cup of coffee in front of him. He was smoking a cigarette and staring off at the wall like he wasn't awake yet. Merle fixed himself a cup of coffee and joined his brother at the table.

"Good date?" Merle asked.

The corner of Daryl's mouth curled up the same way it had since he was a kid and something had brought him even the slightest amount of joy.

"Best," Daryl said. He quickly corrected himself and edited his enthusiasm. "I mean—good enough, I reckon."

Merle laughed to himself. He could rib Daryl, but he wasn't going to.

"Hot piece?" Merle asked.

Daryl swallowed loudly and quickly drank some of the coffee. He winced. The coffee wasn't as cool as he thought it was.

"She's—alright," Daryl said. "She's—she's good."

Merle laughed to himself again. Daryl was clearly trying not to appear as enthusiastic as he felt. He was damn near hopping in his chair like a Mexican jumping bean.

Deciding not to press him because he clearly couldn't handle it at that moment, Merle sat back in his chair and focused on his coffee and cigarette. He allowed Daryl the freedom to stare at the wall and, probably, to rethink his date a thousand times over. Merle only moved when Daryl's phone buzzed around on the table near him. He reached, catching the device before Daryl even had a chance to locate it.

Merle smiled at the message.

"Your lil' girlie," Merle said. "Feelin' ballsy. Hopin' you havin' a good damn mornin', lil' brother. Wantin' to know if..." He broke off and laughed to himself at the next message that came through, following right on the tail end of the other that had gone unfinished—sent by nervous fingers that were a little too enthusiastic, perhaps. "Wantin' to know if you might wanna go to the park for a pic-a-nic, Dar-lina. Seems she's got herself a kid that she thought you might wanna meet. Ya know—just if you wanna. Her words, not mine."

Daryl stared at him. He looked almost like he wanted to vomit and, for just a second, Merle wasn't certain exactly why. Merle reached over to the edge of the table and caught a penny that was laying there with some crumpled dollar bills—things Merle had deposited there from his pockets after work—and he turned it over in his hand.

"Heads or tails, lil' brother," Merle asked. "Yes or no?"

Daryl's throat bobbed and he nodded his head.

"Heads, yeah," Daryl said. "Tails...no."

He was watching Merle intently. He looked like he wanted to puke on the floor beside him—right there in the kitchen. All the half-held-onto pleasantness that he'd been wearing on his expression was gone now.

Merle flipped the penny and caught it in his hand. He turned it right side up and looked at it before he cut his eyes at Daryl.

"Which one you think it is, lil' brother?" Merle asked, keeping eye contact with Daryl.

Daryl shook his head.

"Don't know," Daryl said, his voice a forced monotone.

Merle raised his eyebrows at Daryl.

"Which one you hopin' it'll be?" Merle asked.

Daryl took a long moment to think and Merle let him have it. Once he realized that Merle wasn't going to say anything until he answered the question, Daryl dared to speak.

"Heads," Daryl said quietly.

Merle laughed to himself. Immediately Daryl's face relaxed a little.

"Heads it is," Merle said. "Looks like you need a shower, Daryl. Your ass is goin' on a picnic." Daryl jumped up like he'd been shot—presumably headed straight for the shower—and Merle stopped him long enough to offer him his phone. "You better text her back real quick there, brother. Women don't like to be kept waitin' on an answer."

Daryl nodded his head, a hint of a smile breaking through, and took his phone with him as he headed toward the bathroom.

Merle laughed to himself and settled back into his chair. He slid Daryl's coffee cup across to himself so that he could enjoy his own coffee and what was left of Daryl's. There was no need for good coffee to go to waste and Daryl wasn't caring much about it anymore.

Just as one wrong decision could lead to another wrong decision, so could a right decision.

Merle sat back in his chair and lit himself another cigarette that he planned to enjoy slowly. The morning was quiet and he wasn't in a rush. At most he might get dressed if Andrea was out and about and wanted a little attention or company. At the least, he might not leave that chair until it was time to switch coffee for beer, and he might convince Andrea to join him there. Either way he decided to go, he would enjoy the day. Merle put the penny down on the table in front of him and flipped it over so that it showed heads—what it should have shown the whole time if a coin had enough sense to know the right answer to things.


End file.
